Nordic Divestments from Israel’s Occupation: Only the Tip of the Iceberg
Tuesday, 6 April, 2010 - 23:04
Following the lead of the Norwegian oil fund, the biggest Swedish pension fund, Första AP-Fonden, has recently excluded Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems from its investment portfolios on ethical grounds. In its recent annual report, the fund’s ethical council justified its decision, stating that “it deems that the company can be linked to violations of fundamental conventions and norms through its active development, delivery and maintenance of a custom-made monitoring system for certain parts of the separation barrier being built on the West Bank”.
The Nordic funds are not alone. Over the past year activist groups, civil society organizations, trade unions, fair trade co-operatives, churches and universities have become increasingly involved in economic activism campaigns against the Israeli occupation. This growing movement has already marked a few successes: Veolia Environment was pressured by a Europe-wide campaign to announce it was abandoning its East Jerusalem’s light rail contract (although it has not yet actually done so, and continues to operate other services in the settlements); Dexia Bank in Belgium declared that it will stop giving loans to illegal settlements; Swedish Assa Abloy announced that it will move its factory from the West Bank; and the Dutch corporation Unilever has announced that it would sell its shares in Beigel & Beigel, an Israeli food company located in one of the settlement industrial zones.
Much of the information used by these global campaigns comes from within Israel, from the Coalition of Women for Peace’s online database, “Who Profits from the Occupation?”. This was launched in January 2009 and has since become a leading source of information on corporate involvement in the occupation. In its research, Who Profits seeks to expose the economic connections of corporations in Israel and abroad to the daily workings of the occupation, to ensure that economic interests are more accessible to public scrutiny and to appeal for public accountability. Who Profits publishes reports on hundreds of Israeli and international companies that actively violate international human rights law in the context of the Israeli occupation.
The companies listed in the Who Profits database are organized according to three main categories of involvement: The Settlement Industry, Economic Exploitation and Control of Population. This framing marks a shift from only investigating settlement products, and enables a more in-depth challenge to the occupation industry in its entirety, which involves big Israeli and international corporations that sustain the settlements project, exploit Palestinian resources and develop its security apparatus.
The Settlement Industry section of the database distinguishes between three different forms of corporate involvement in the settlement industry: Israeli companies located in the settlements which use the resources of Palestinian land and labour in their production; companies involved in sustaining the settlements and connecting them to Israel; and companies involved in real estate and the construction of Israeli infrastructure and settlements on occupied land. This section of the database includes Carmel Agrexco, Israel’s largest exporter of agricultural produce, and Ahava, a privately held Israeli cosmetics company that manufactures products using minerals and mud from the Dead Sea. Goods from both companies are widely sold in the UK.
The Economic Exploitation section is perhaps the most important part of the mapping of occupation-related profits. When operating in the occupied Palestinian territory, Israeli companies enjoy special governmental support, access to cheap resources, tax incentives, and a very lax enforcement of labour and of environmental protection laws. These advantages often result in the exploitation of Palestinian labour, Palestinian natural resources and the Palestinian consumer market.
The Population Control category lists companies involved in construction and maintenance of the occupation’s system of roadblocks, fences, walls and barriers, terminals and checkpoints, as well as of Israeli settlements and roads designated for the exclusive use of Israelis. This category includes, for example, a comprehensive file on Elbit Systems, as well as other Israeli and international companies – Hewlett Packard (HP), Volvo and the IDB Group – to name a few – which provide surveillance technologies for the Israeli army, are involved in the construction of the separation barrier and/or provide private security services to guard Israelis in the occupied Palestinian territory.
One example close to home is British-Danish company “Group4securicor” (G4S), a West Sussex-based provider of security services. The company owns 91% of Hashmira, an Israeli security company. Hashmira provides scanning equipment for checkpoints and terminals in the West Bank and Gaza, including luggage-scanning machines and full-body scanners and also provides private security and guarding services. In 2002 the Guardian published an investigation, showing that “Hashmira, in the name of “security” routinely prevents Palestinian villagers from cultivating their own fields, travelling to schools, hospitals and shops in nearby towns and receiving emergency medical assistance”.
Following the publication, G4S declared that it would pull Hashmira’s guards out of the West Bank, but last week Who Profits researchers found Hashmira guards patrolling the settlement of Qiryat Sefer. They also found that the Jerusalem branch of Hashmira provides services to two other illegal settlements – Ma’aleh Adumim and Har Adar.
The most striking feature about this growing database is that it is a continuous community research effort, carried out by dozens of activists. Activists in the Coalition of Women for Peace take on rigorous fieldwork and computer recording and analysis in order to expand and complete the database. With about 20 requests for information each day, the information centre provides various organizations and initiatives around the world with daily, immediate and reliable information, along with valuable contacts to other groups and organizations. Beyond the direct support of campaigns, this project is another way of creating and supporting new alliances towards building a global movement against the occupation.
Eilat Ma’oz is the Director of Israeli organisation the Coalition of Women for Peace
This article may be reproduced on condition that JNews is cited as its source
Nordic Divestments from Israel’s Occupation: Only the Tip of the Iceberg
The Nordic funds are not alone. Over the past year activist groups, civil society organizations, trade unions, fair trade co-operatives, churches and universities have become increasingly involved in economic activism campaigns against the Israeli occupation. This growing movement has already marked a few successes: Veolia Environment was pressured by a Europe-wide campaign to announce it was abandoning its East Jerusalem’s light rail contract (although it has not yet actually done so, and continues to operate other services in the settlements); Dexia Bank in Belgium declared that it will stop giving loans to illegal settlements; Swedish Assa Abloy announced that it will move its factory from the West Bank; and the Dutch corporation Unilever has announced that it would sell its shares in Beigel & Beigel, an Israeli food company located in one of the settlement industrial zones.
Much of the information used by these global campaigns comes from within Israel, from the Coalition of Women for Peace’s online database, “Who Profits from the Occupation?”. This was launched in January 2009 and has since become a leading source of information on corporate involvement in the occupation. In its research, Who Profits seeks to expose the economic connections of corporations in Israel and abroad to the daily workings of the occupation, to ensure that economic interests are more accessible to public scrutiny and to appeal for public accountability. Who Profits publishes reports on hundreds of Israeli and international companies that actively violate international human rights law in the context of the Israeli occupation.
The companies listed in the Who Profits database are organized according to three main categories of involvement: The Settlement Industry, Economic Exploitation and Control of Population. This framing marks a shift from only investigating settlement products, and enables a more in-depth challenge to the occupation industry in its entirety, which involves big Israeli and international corporations that sustain the settlements project, exploit Palestinian resources and develop its security apparatus.
The Settlement Industry section of the database distinguishes between three different forms of corporate involvement in the settlement industry: Israeli companies located in the settlements which use the resources of Palestinian land and labour in their production; companies involved in sustaining the settlements and connecting them to Israel; and companies involved in real estate and the construction of Israeli infrastructure and settlements on occupied land. This section of the database includes Carmel Agrexco, Israel’s largest exporter of agricultural produce, and Ahava, a privately held Israeli cosmetics company that manufactures products using minerals and mud from the Dead Sea. Goods from both companies are widely sold in the UK.
The Economic Exploitation section is perhaps the most important part of the mapping of occupation-related profits. When operating in the occupied Palestinian territory, Israeli companies enjoy special governmental support, access to cheap resources, tax incentives, and a very lax enforcement of labour and of environmental protection laws. These advantages often result in the exploitation of Palestinian labour, Palestinian natural resources and the Palestinian consumer market.
The Population Control category lists companies involved in construction and maintenance of the occupation’s system of roadblocks, fences, walls and barriers, terminals and checkpoints, as well as of Israeli settlements and roads designated for the exclusive use of Israelis. This category includes, for example, a comprehensive file on Elbit Systems, as well as other Israeli and international companies – Hewlett Packard (HP), Volvo and the IDB Group – to name a few – which provide surveillance technologies for the Israeli army, are involved in the construction of the separation barrier and/or provide private security services to guard Israelis in the occupied Palestinian territory.
One example close to home is British-Danish company “Group4securicor” (G4S), a West Sussex-based provider of security services. The company owns 91% of Hashmira, an Israeli security company. Hashmira provides scanning equipment for checkpoints and terminals in the West Bank and Gaza, including luggage-scanning machines and full-body scanners and also provides private security and guarding services. In 2002 the Guardian published an investigation, showing that “Hashmira, in the name of “security” routinely prevents Palestinian villagers from cultivating their own fields, travelling to schools, hospitals and shops in nearby towns and receiving emergency medical assistance”.
Following the publication, G4S declared that it would pull Hashmira’s guards out of the West Bank, but last week Who Profits researchers found Hashmira guards patrolling the settlement of Qiryat Sefer. They also found that the Jerusalem branch of Hashmira provides services to two other illegal settlements – Ma’aleh Adumim and Har Adar.
The most striking feature about this growing database is that it is a continuous community research effort, carried out by dozens of activists. Activists in the Coalition of Women for Peace take on rigorous fieldwork and computer recording and analysis in order to expand and complete the database. With about 20 requests for information each day, the information centre provides various organizations and initiatives around the world with daily, immediate and reliable information, along with valuable contacts to other groups and organizations. Beyond the direct support of campaigns, this project is another way of creating and supporting new alliances towards building a global movement against the occupation.
Eilat Ma’oz is the Director of Israeli organisation the Coalition of Women for Peace
This article may be reproduced on condition that JNews is cited as its source